Quality Time – Tonto National Monument

Saturday, September 2nd, My –th birthday. I’ll let you fill in the blank. I like traveling. Might be my only talent…Roadtripping. I have a goal of visiting all the National Parks. So for my birthday, we drove to the closest National Park to our home. Tonto National Monument. This is probably not my very first National Park. I grew up in Arizona, my husband in Utah. We have been to Grand Canyon, Sunset Crater, Arches, Yellowstone…

This is the first National Park with our goal to visit as many as we can and have the kids participate in the Junior Ranger Program. My birthday gift was the purchase of the Annual pass and NPS Passport. The journey has started.

We packed a lunch, filled up our water bottles, put on our tennis shoes (this is a big deal, as my youngest only ever wants to wear flip-flops) and drove the hour and half to the park. We listened to an Audible book, Wonder on the way.

When the kids were younger we had a minivan with an entertainment system. They watched movies while we traveled long distances. One day the tv stopped working. I think it was a side effect of the summer heat in Phoenix. We tried watching movies on laptops and iPads, but it wasn’t as seamless as the installed entertainment system. A friend got me started on Audible, its magical! Now we drive hours and hours, while we all keep our mouths closed, our ears open and take in the magical Newbery or quality book that I have chosen.

I can’t say that our trip was perfect, and that I didn’t get frustrated at some point. I can say that it was a great day and it was a baby step to healing our family through Wholesome Recreational Activities! One stamp down, many more to go…Learning to enjoy the journey!